Dunbar May Be Bowing Out of SBOE Race

Quorum Report, an online political news site (subscription required) based in Austin, is reporting that State Republican Executive Committee member Brian Russell, an Austin attorney, is seeking Dunbar’s seat. According to QR, Russell says Dunbar recruited him to run.

Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller is releasing the following statement following a report that Cynthia Dunbar has decided not to run for re-election to her seat on the Texas State Board of Education. According to the Austin-based political news Web site Quorum Report, State Republican Executive Committee member Brian Russell of Austin says he has been recruited by Dunbar to run for her seat. Miller had the following statement:

“If this report is accurate, then it appears that Cynthia Dunbar realized her extremist track record made her a damaged brand in next year’s election. But the only difference between her and Russell is she wrote a book savaging public education and he hasn’t done that yet. Nobody should be fooled here. He holds the same anti-science and extremist views that Dunbar does, which is why she recruited him to run for her seat.”

In her 2008 book, One Nation Under God, Dunbar called public education a “tool of perversion,” “tyrannical” and unconstitutional. During the 2008 president election, Dunbar attacked then-candidate Barack Obama as a Marxist and a terrorist sympathizer who wanted another attack on America so that he could declare martial law and throw out the Constitution. Dunbar has also been a leader of efforts by the State Board of Education’s far-right faction to politicize our children’s social studies classrooms and to promote creationist arguments against evolution in science classrooms.

In March of this year Russell successfully persuaded the State Republican Executive Committee to pass a resolution demanding that all Republican state board members obey the Texas GOP platform by supporting creationist arguments against evolution in new public school science curriculum standards. He also has served as treasurer of Legacy PAC, a Christian-right political action committee. In 2004 he served on a committee that drafted the Texas Republican Party platform, which called separation of church and state a “myth,” demanded that public schools teach “intelligent design”/creationism in science classrooms and opposed including medically accurate information on contraception and disease prevention in sex education classes.